Ashley Morrissette left Bloomington a week ago feeling a downtrodden about the Boilermakers’ performance.
Although she had scored 17 points, it came in a losing effort, and in a game in which Purdue hadn’t played it usual selfless style offensively.
And so the senior guard wanted to try to make up for the disappointment as soon as possible. Morrissette did so, tying her career high in points, with 31, dishing out seven assists, while having five rebounds and four steals in a win at Michigan State.
“I just wanted to make sure that we came in the game and we were ready for Michigan State,” she said Tuesday. “There was a certain determination that we weren’t going to lose that game.”
Morrissette made it be so. After the loss at Indiana, which was Purdue’s second straight, the captains met with Coach Sharon Versyp. The 11th-year coach wanted more leadership from the veterans and needed more production, too. For Morrissette, who has been pressed into full-time point guard duty this season, that meant reestablishing herself as a big-time scoring threat.
She looked more determined, taking 20 field goals, matching her career-high, while hitting 11; and she got them a variety of ways, going to the basket hard — she hit 6-of-7 from the line — and taking three-pointers, making three.
“We had a talk before the game and (Versyp) just challenged me to look more for my shot,” said Morrissette, whose Boilermakers (13-8 overall, 4-3 in the Big Ten) host Nebraska (5-15, 1-7) at 6 p.m. Thursday. “I always look for my teammates, but that’s the next step that she wanted me to take.”
Morrissette has had a run a balancing act during her senior season. Forever an off-guard, she was planning to run point part-time this year, before Tiara Murphy’s injury, a torn ACL, turned it into a full-time gig.
Morrissette has made it look natural, even if it’s not.
“You have to be a leader, you have to be more vocal, you have to be involved in every aspect of the game defensive and offensively,” Versyp said of playing point. “When she had that opportunity, I told her, ‘What’s better than having the ball in your hands?’ You were a 2, but now when I put her at the 2, she’s like, ‘I want the point back.’ That’s good. That’s something that she’s learned to love.
“With Murph going out, it’s caused her to step up and be more vocal. We might not have that without that injury. She’s really seized the opportunity and grown in so many ways.”
Morrissette is doing a bit of everything this season. Her 15.2 scoring average ranks 14th in the Big Ten, while her 4.4 assists rank 10th. She has 48 steals in 21 games, putting her fourth in the Big Ten.
It’s not like she’s only now acquired the versatility. It’s been in her, she says, but is only coming out this season, because she’s being asked to do more. In the last couple years, with April Wilson at the point, Morrissette’s been able to focus on scoring from the off-guard.
But not now.
“There’s always been a lot of tools there, but when you come into a team environment, you’ve just got to give up some things and replace them with other things,” Morrissette said.
“This year obviously is my senior year and Coach V has had a lot of trust and a lot of confidence in me, and I guess she’s letting me bring out the old tools.”
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